1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to supports and racks for mounting of clothing hangers and the like, and more particularly, it relates to such supports or racks that may be lowered for use, or retracted upwardly into a storage position.
2. Description of Prior Art
There have been many designs of supports or racks for the convenient mounting of clothing hangers. Many of these supports are of a specialty nature such as used in a cleaning and pressing facility, or by users employed in the garment or sewing industry. Many of such supports have structures for mounting upon an overhead support. When desired, these supports are lowered to a position where the user can readily mount clothing hangers onto them. After the hangers are removed, these supports are retracted upwardly into a storage position. Possibly because of the specialized nature of their use, these retractable supports or racks have complicated structures, and in many cases employ complex or difficult to operate mechanisms for their extension or retraction. In addition, the clothing hangers mounted upon such a downwardly extended support must be handled manually and removed individually from the support for transportation to another area.
The clothes hanger support of the present invention is fabricated from relatively simple and easy to make, but durable elements. It is light in weight and permits a ready mounting to an overhead surface. The support retracts into an upward position clearing the work area in its surroundings. When it is desired to place the support into use, a simple downward pull upon the support extends it into a fully extended position and it automatically locks in such downward position. A simple upward movement upon the support produces its automatic retraction into a storage position.
Additionally, this novel support can accept a plurality of clothing hangers upon a horizontal cross support. The user can conveniently remove this cross support from the remainder of the device and carry the plurality of hangers to another work area or other location on the cross support. If desired, a plurality of horizontal cross supports which can form accessory stripper carriers to be used with the basic clothing hanger support. Thus, when one of the horizontal cross supports is filled with clothing hangers, it may be readily removed and replaced by an unloaded one. If desired, a different accessory strip carrier may be employed with the basic clothing hanger support for removing the plurality of clothing hangers directly from the horizontal cross support attached to the retracting support.
The novel clothes hanger support of this invention, will find great utility in dwellings, especially in the limited floor space wherein occurs the washing and drying of clothes. More particularly, the modern dwelling has relatively small floor space available for the washers and dryers presently employed for cleaning and drying clothing. The clothing hanger support of the present invention can be mounted to an overhead surface within the limited floor area of such dwellings and extended downwardly for the convenient mounting of ready to wear and other types of apparel upon clothing hangers. Upon completion of its task, the clothing hanger support is retracted into the upward position clearing the work area for other uses.